No comments about Journey to Manaos.

No comments about Northeast Brazil Guide (BRAZIL UNIBANCO TRAVEL GUIDE).

3 comments about Amazon Journal: Dispatches from a Vanishing Frontier.

1. O'Connor's brilliance is that he combines a writing style that simply engages the reader with a the knowledge that he can't and doesn't know all that there is to know about his topic. He brings together several issues and introduces many intriguing characters (Rauni, Kenny Good, Davi, just to name a few). The combination of the political ineptitude of the Indian organizations and the skewed perception of the Religious affiliates in the Amazon create an overwhelming amount of obsticals for objective journalism. O'Connor reports what happens from the viewpoint of a jounalist that knows he is part of the problem. I have come into contact with Venezuelan Yanomama and have seen first hand the impact that contact has made. O'Connor's unbias journalism is a releif from all of the news specials, and talk-show trash that seems to abound with the "Save the Rainforest" campaign. Read this book if you want a true report of what is happening to the last remaining independent people in the world. The truth is that contact with "white" people has braught innumerable destruction to this once self-sufficient society and Geoffrey O'Connor is not affraid to tell that side of the story.



2. As an American living in the southern Amazon basin, near the Xingu Indian Reserve, I unfortunately can attest to the truth in Mr. O'Conner's writings. He manages to give one a glimpse of what it is like to exist in this lawless, confusing frontier. To capture the flavor of this land of anarchy truly is difficult but the author does a superb job in transforming the vagueness of this bizarre and mystical frontier into words.

   Mr. O'Conner, thank you for putting my thoughts into print. The grand Amazon is under serious attack and ,in my region especially, is being leveled at an exponential rate. Someone please do something.




3. I picked this book up on Granville Island in Vancouver on a clearance/remainders table out of interest. For people who wonder what has happended to the rainforests in Brazil after much international coverage during the late eighties and early nineties would find this of interest. Kind of sad.

3 comments about Carnival in Rio.

1. Here I am living in New Orleans, the home of Mardi Gras with a passion for Carnival and happy feet that move uncontrollably when I hear a samba beat! As a photographer and ethnomusicologist, I am most appreciative of a job well done. This book with its vibrant stop action YOU ARE THERE photos of beautiful dancers in colorful feathers and minuscule sequins and beads, wild frenzied crowds, happy musicians and Rio de Janeiro excitement really takes you there! The text is fascinating too and gives insight into the people, preparation and parades that make this legendary event happen each year. Plus wait there's more, folks! This package goes beyond what most books of its kind offer-it brings you the SOUNDS of Carnival music in a rockin CD. Corny as it may sound, this IS the next best thing to being there! It's always a party here in The Big Easy and I can enjoy this book and CD during Jazz Fest as well as Mardi Gras, it is timeless. Austrian author and photographer, Helmut Teissl is an artist and I'd sure like to see what he could do with Mardi Gras! Come on down, Helmut, I'll throw ya some beads from my French Quarter balcony!



2. This book and CD are the next best thing to going to Carnival in Rio. Carnival is the Brazilian equivalent of Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Except the scale and intensity of Carnaval dwarf Mardi Gras. Few of us will ever get to Brazil to enjoy the spectacle, but we can enjoy it from afar thanks to Helmut Teissl and his experience over 12 Carnivals.

   Before praising this work further, let me put out a caution. This book contains images of bare breasts and barely covered buttocks and private parts that will offend some. If those images are troubling to you, I suggest you avoid this book. For those who are neutral on the subject, I found the displays of female anatomy to be consistent with portraying the event, rather than being present for inappropriate reasons.

   One of the great strengths of this book is that it explains about the competition among the Samba clubs that is the key feature of Carnival. I learned that there are many requirements for how these are conducted. For example, there must be a group of at least 70 women over the age of 45 wearing skirts. The costumes of these women can weigh as much of 33 pounds each. That's a lot for a small woman to bear. There is also a large group of male pushers, who roll the floats ahead with hand labor. The music section that produces the Samba beat will often exceed 300, and each Samba club has its own unique Samba sound, which you can hear on the CD.

   The photographs cover preparations throughout the year, as well as Carnival itself. Some of the images are of people standing, and others use a long exposure to capture the astonishing motion of the dancing. These latter images are like abstract art. In each case, the images are in vibrant color, like plumage of exotic animals in the Amazon jungle.

   There is also a lot of social commentary in the photographs. In several cases, performers are wearing very expensive costumes and display smiles featuring the rotting and missing teeth of the poor. In other cases, you see expensive orthodontia in the smiles among the featured women of the Samba clubs. The costumes and the gaity seem to be pushing back against the blackness of night, the darkness of death, and the risk of damnation. In some ways, you will feel like you are watching a voodoo rite in a James Bond movie, rather than a fun parade.

   After experiencing Carnival, I suggest that you think about the key rituals of our own society. What positive and not-so-positive qualities are represented? As a starting point, you might begin with Halloween and then move on to Thanksgiving. Then consider your town's Memorial Day parade. I leave it to you to choose your rituals after that. How can you and your family develop and nurture rituals that will be good for each of you and the whole family?

   Feel the beat!




3. This is one of the most beautiful photographic essays I have ever seen. It is so intense, it is almost too much (like the movie Moulin Rouge); but because it is a book rather than a movie, you can take it in at your own pace. The colors, excitement, and sensuality of Carnival are captured in a way that makes you glad you, too, are a member of the human race. The CD which comes with the book is a nice addition, but doesn't come close in vividness and stimulation to the photos.

No comments about Sao Paulo Guide (BRAZIL UNIBANCO TRAVEL GUIDE).

5 comments about Moon Handbooks Brazil (Moon Handbooks).

1. What a great guide to this wonderful country - It is a completely up-to-date guide a expert who lives in Brazil give you the inside track, showing the reader the things to see and do. It is not not just a listing of tourist trappings, rather a substantial guide to the real Brazil. Before you leave, be sure to pack this guide to ensure you don't miss a thing."



2. São Paulo is the largest Brazilian city, how do you find a hotel near your trade show event or congress? How to fix or order your palm power supply or your network cable? Even these stuff are covered on the book, more than a traditional tour guide. A Brazlian view by an american citizen living in the country. Business travelling or Tour are both well covered on the book.



3. The Rio part of this book is replete with gross errors. Some of the resturant prices are 2 to 3 times what they are listed in the book. One of restaurants that is listed as a bargain is, in fact, one of the most expensive in Rio.
   
   The maps of Rio are plain aweful, they simply show "points of interest" that are two or three blocks off their actual location. I am not talking about one or two, but more like half that I have tried to find...
   
   Kinda makes you wonder if the author has been to Rio at all...



4. I just returned from a four week trip around Brazil. I took this guide and Let's Go Brazil. This guide was very useful from an information point of view. The author gave a lot of background into the country's history and culture.
   
   However, the restaurant and hotel recommendations were terrible. I often wondered if the person had ever been to these places! We visited two of the "specially" recommended hotels in Natal. The first one was a real dump and the other had burned down! We found this to be true of all the recommended hotels and pretty much stopped using the book for this purpose.
   
   The prices were also wildly off. I expected some discrepancy between the book prices and the real prices, but not to the extent we encountered. In Salvador we tried one of the moderately priced restaurants. It turned out to be one of our most expensive meals, and not one of our most memorable either.
   
   The maps in this book are also wildly off. In Salvador, some of the most important landmarks were put on the wrong spot. We also encountered problems with other maps. The Rio one seemed to be okay though.
   
   Overall, I'd recommend this book for someone who wants some background information on the country and its culture. However, I wouldn't rely on the hotel or restaurant recommendations or the maps. Buy another guide for that.



5. I know Brazil is a big country...but I was a bit surprised when I found that there was not a bit of information on Brasilia. I found it absurd that the capital of Brazil,with a population of over a million people, not only does not have a section....it is NOT even listed in the index!

1 comments about A Voyage Up the River Amazon: Including a Residence at Para.

1. An excellent narrative full of hard-to-find details on the life, people and the land in the Amazon region during the mid-nineteenth century. This book has inspired Alfred R. Wallace and Henry W. Bates, in their mid-twenties, to come to the Amazon region on April 25, 1848 and start one of the most celebrated expeditions made by Victorian scientists on that region. Certainly, Edwards' book still is a great source of inspiration (and information) to all interested in the wonders and mysteries of the Amazon region.

4 comments about Through the Brazilian Wilderness.

1. T.R. was writing was very gradiloquent, and this book really gives readers a good example of this. Read about the journey that ended with T.R. having a river named after him (Rio Duvida renamed to the current Rio Roosevelt), and gave him the sickness that would eventually lead to his death less than five years later.



2. As those familiar with his history know, Theodore Roosevelt was truly a unique, gifted and accomplished person. He was naturalist, historian, big game hunter, politician, statesman, conservationist and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize rolled into one. If he had followed the interests and predilictions of his youth, he would have grown up to be a naturalist rather than President of the United States. As a boy he had a vast collection of frogs, squirrels, snakes, birds, insects that he called the Roosevelt Museum of Natural History.

   Science's loss was politics gain. However, T.R. never lost his interest in nature. Following his presidency, he set out on an expedition to explore and map unknown regions of Paraguay and Brazil on the 950-mile River of Doubt, a previously unexplored tributary of the Amazon River. The scientific endeavor became an ordeal to test the expedition's courage and stamina as it faced overpowering heat, dangerous rapids, wild animals, devouring ants, endless insects, fever, dysentery and more. The expedition collected thousands of species of birds and mammals, but Roosevelt would die a few years after completing the expedition. Roosevelt admired those who lived life with passion and for what he called "the Great Adventure." This story chronicles one of T.R.'s last great adventures in his typical inimitable style.




3. TR's account of his expedition to explore the River of Doubt shows a lot of the reasons we still admire him. First, he was a serious scientist. He was dedicated to discovering new species of wildlife (and could rattle off their Latin names with the best of them), mapping unknown stretches of river, and observing the ways of foreign lands. We know TR as a physical character and often forget what a highly intelligent man he was.

   Second, his writing is greatly under-appreciated. He doesn't breeze over his descriptions of wildlife or the landscape--it's pretty technical stuff--but he does it clearly and concisely. As someone who has labored through countless pedantic textbooks, I took comfort in his words, "Ability to write well, if the writer had nothing to write about, entitles him to mere derision. But the greatest thought is robbed of an immense proportion of its value if expressed in a mean or obscure manner."

   Third, despite the above, he could still endure enormous physical hardship at an old age. Battling rapids, hauling canoes, fighting disease, and hunting game, TR had the combination of brawn and intelligence that's seriously lacking in our leaders today, especially the lightweight that now sits behind TR's desk.

   This book is also a great window into a time and place forever lost to history. TR's writing projects a clear photo in your mind of undiscovered wilderness and great adventure.




4. Theodore Roosevelt was a man's man. A New York kid whose taste for adventure was sparked in his boyhood by a dead seal for sale on a Broadway sidewalk. Harvard student, soldier, Rough Rider, youngest President ever and one who survived the assassin's bullet, maverick politician, Nobel Prize winner, hunter and conservationist, and finally the man who, at 55 years old, explored an unknown region of the Amazon river basin. Imagine one of today's former-Presidents undertaking a similar adventure. For six weeks, in 1914, Roosevelt and his party paddled and carried their canoes down a previously unexplored 950-mile river now called the Rio Roosevelt. Men died, boats were lost, food became scarce, dangerous animals and natives were about, fever borne by insects sickened many in the party (and led to Roosevelt's own death five years later). This is the stuff of "Through the Brazilian Wilderness".

   Roosevelt's other works, including "The Rough Riders", are better known, and this one is not great literature. Instead, it is a remarkable adventure story by an interesting man. The book is essentially Roosevelt's trip diary, colored by his great enthusiasm for adventure and the natural world. Even before reaching the Amazon, Roosevelt stops at a Brazilian snake research lab that so captures his attention that he writes seventeen pages about it. At all times, he makes careful note of the wildlife he encounters, not quite with the depth of a professional scientist, but with the trained eye of a dedicated and experienced hobbyist. He squeezes in some amusing stories about piranha fish that he heard --and apparently believed. Naturalists of the day killed animals in the name of science, which places in context Roosevelt's joy in hunting and his comments: first on alligators ("They are often dangerous and are always destructive to fish, and it is good to shoot them") and later on conservation ("There is every reason why the good people of South America should waken... to the duty of preserving from extinction the wildlife which is an asset of such interest."). The book is most poetic in its description of animal life, and particularly in registering surprise that the myriad insects are far more pernicious than any of the better-known dangers such as alligators, big cats, or piranhas.

   The book's is not perfect, and Roosevelt is not a great author in a literary sense, rather making up in enthusiasm what he lacks in prose and penetrating insight. There is no attempt at political analysis, he simply praises Brazilians as good hosts who have started down the road to democracy. He sees the land he travels through as like the United States of perhaps a hundred years earlier, so there are frequent predictions that a promising location is ripe for development. The limited foray into politics is to praise Positivism, the ideology of the Brazilian military class that emphasized modernity and structure, and that not incidentally justified the many instances of military intervention in Brazilian politics over the years. Finally, the one annoyance is the recurring theme (perhaps a dozen times in all) of the true danger of the journey. Over and over we read that the river has never been charted, that it is truly dangerous, that the explorers are not your armchair-adventurer variety, and that such voyages will necessarily be easier for those who follow in the future. We get that.

   Roosevelt was an interesting man, his enthusiasm and taste for adventure are infectious. The book is not a literary triumph, but it is a fun read and an excellent journey through the Amazon

1 comments about Brazil on the Move (Armchair Traveller Series).

1. Dos Passos is always good, so Brazil on the Move is good, too. If you're looking for a detailed nonfiction book on Brazil, this one is great. And if you're not particularly interested in Brazil, you'll at least feel a confident knowledge on the subject. It's hard to find this title, though, so if you get your hands on it by any chance, you should definitely appreciate the opportunity to read it.

3 comments about My Last Chance to Be a Boy: Theodore Roosevelt's South American Expedition of 1913-1914.

1. Ornig provides the first detailed account of one of the most exciting adventure stories of the 20th century -- Theodore Roosevelt's exploration of the River of Doubt in Brazil's Amazon. The story is more incredible when you think that Roosevelt was a 55-year old former President at the time of the expedition. As we approach the 100th anniversary of Roosevelt's presidency, and as we consider our relationship with the earth, it is worth taking another look at this great outdoorsman. Ornig weaves together the political and diplomatic origins of the expedition and how Roosevelt, his son Kermit, and the rest of the expedition got much more than they bargained for. There's murder, there's drowning (and a question of whether Kermit Roosevelt was accountable), there's frustration, and there's a former President on the brink of death. After you read it, you'll want to read Roosevelt's account, "Through the Brazilian Wilderness." You'll enjoy that one too



2. TR's 1913-1914 expedition down the River of Doubt (subsequently renamed Rio Teodoro in his honor, and later Rio Roosevelt) is an astonishing piece of history - one often refered to in passing by other TR biographers, but not often fully explored, as it here. Author Ornig tells an exciting tale well, from the multitudious details of planning and executing a massive exploring expedition in the early 20th century, to vivid portraits of the characters involved. This book would be a wonderful companion for any adventure traveller (or even armchair adventurers).

   Best of all, Ornig is no run-of-the-mill TR hagiographer (and there are plenty of them out there), nor is he interested in taking unfair potshots at the great man (plenty of those folks out there, too). Ornig simply relates events as they occured, and doesn't care a whit whether they cast TR in a favorable or unfavorable light: TR was a poor shot (due to his poor eyesight) and became grumpy and embarassed when he missed easy targets. TR was delighted with the impact on his waistline when the expedition was forced to subsist on reduced rations -- and argued against the restoration of full rations even though others were suffering. Do these facts detract from the TR legend, or add to it? I have never been a fan of Marble Men, and found that I loved TR even more after glimpsing some of his human flaws in MY LAST CHANCE TO BE A BOY. No student of TR should be without this volume.




3. Ornig's book is the first full account of this amazing adventure since Theodore Roosevelt was alive to tell it himself. Thanks to the author's years of meticulous research, we get to see the ex-president up close as every ounce of courage and determination that can possibly be required of a human being is exacted by this perilous expedition. Why would a man, having already carved his name in history, literally risk his life in service to exploration? The book title is informative; it was the kind of thing he loved to do. Roosevelt's passion for for life was abundantly demonstrated on the River of Doubt as he and his party encountered one life-threatening obstacle after another. If it wasn't the hostile natives who tracked them, it was the piranhas. If it wasn't a lack of food and supplies, it was flesh-eating disease.... As if fighting just to survive the forces of nature weren't enough, there was also the recklessness of some, including his own son. And there were personal conflicts among the explorers--disagreements, arguments, theft--and a murder. This wilderness adventure had it all--and it wasn't reality TV. No camera crew, no global positioning system, no one to bail them out at any point. In this age of apathy and plasticized existence, this story is all the more striking.
   
   Thus, out of this book emerges a fresh portrait of Theodore Roosevelt. We learn a great deal about him under conditions of maximum stress. We also get to know the group of explorers who accompanied him. And the generous 48 pages of maps and photographs are a real plus. Many thanks to the author for rediscovering this story and dusting it off for us with such literary finesse. For a non-fiction history work, it reads like a novel.